Friday 1 August 2008

The Dance of the Seven Doo Doos

We are heading back to London to pack up the place there and mark the end of our year-long cross Channel adventure; not celebrate exactly as the idea of giving up my London bolthole does not fill me with unconfined job. What an adventure it has been. La Fille can now shout at me in English AND French, throw bilingual tantrums and can now say things like: "Oh do stop being ever so very boring," when I go on at her. Before she spoke to me in French because it was easier. Now she speaks to me in French just to annoy me. It's progress. What's more, no shrink in sight.

And never let it be said that I have neglected to educate La Fille in the many and varied facets of English "culture".

The other morning I found her in the kitchen scantily clad with two of her scrappy linen security blankets - known in France as "doudous' pronounced doo-doos - tied around her, one round the chest, the other the waist - dancing in front of the microwave door to Oh I do Like to Be Beside the Seaside. As I said, progress!

4 comments:

Waffle said...

OMG it has verses! To think I never knew. Hope you don't end up chaining yourself to a number 55 bus and weeping uncontrollably.

Bravo la fille.

Irene said...

Does she allow her doo-doos to be washed, or is she like my daughter was and pull them out of the laundry basket?

Cimon said...

I am surprised your daughter talks to you in both French and English.

My son (nearly 3) answers me in French even though I talk in his mother's language !

Bilinguism means apartheid to him : the world is divided into 2 groups (those who speak his dad's language and those who speak his mom's language). There is no way of moving from one group to another...

Of course, I should add a third group : those who speak neither mom's nor dad's language, which leaves him with a rather weird impression ;-)

Parisgirl said...

Jaywalker, yup verses, but it doesn't get any better as it goes on.
Irene, we have to wrest the really disgustingly grubby ones from her and put them straight in the machine!
Cimon, we speak French at home so I'm the only person who speaks to her in English. She did think I was the weird one until we started going to London regularly.